Another "Is this a scam" thread: International domain registration.

[commasense]

I received the following e-mail yesterday:

I'm sorry to disturb you so abrupt. We are a domain name registration service company in Asia,

On 19th April. we received a formal application submitted by Mr. John Sun who wanted to use the keyword "[my company name]" to register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn/.hk/.asia/ domain names.
After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration are same as your domain name and trademark. We aren't sure whether you have any relation with him. Because these domain names would produce possible dispute, now we have hold down his registration, but if we do not get your company's an reply in the next 5 working days, we will approve his application

As authorized anti-cybersquatting organization we hereby suspect Mr. John Sun is a domain investor. so we need you to attach importance to this issue.

In order to handle this issue better, Please contact us by Fax ,Telephone or Email as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely 　　　　　　　　2010-4-21
Joy
Oversea Marketing Manager
-------------------------------------------
Room 1008,
International Building,
No.38 YueLong road,NanTong City
Website: www.volcafe.asia

Although I was immediately suspicious of the poor English, the Web site (which is also badly written) seems to be a legit Chinese company, involved in Internet consulting and domain registration. But even so, this could be a phony attempt to get me to register a bunch of overseas domains with them.

So I have a number of questions:

1. Should I take this at face value, or do you think they are just trying to scare me into buying some domains from them?

2. Can I register a domain with any country's top-level domain suffix (.cn, .fr, etc.) with my usual (US-based) registrar, or do some domains have to be registered with certain companies/agencies/countries?

And bigger (and less factual) questions:

3. Is it worth it to register one's business name in every possible TLD? There are five TLDs that most companies would qualify for (com, net, org, biz, info), then there are several hundred country TLDs, and finally the internationalized domain names in non-Roman alphabets. Plus .asia, for some reason. (No .europe, .africa, etc.)

Do some companies routinely register in every TLD possible? If not, how do you decide which to register?

4. What's the downside to letting someone else have mydomainname.cn or .asia, or .hk, etc.? What do you do if someone registers your domain in Kyrgyzstan (.kg)?

For background, my company name is not my biggest brand. I publish a newsletter with a different name, and I own the usual domains (com, org, net, etc.) for both the company and the newsletter title. But the company name sites simply redirect to the newsletter site.

Although I've owned and used the company name for more than 15 years, it's not trademarked, and it doesn't figure significantly in my business marketing. So it's not terribly important or valuable to me, and I'm not sure I'd want to spend what I imagine would be thousands of dollars to register every possible TLD.

My only reasons for wanting to even consider it are that I coined the word myself, and I might conceivably want to develop it into a more prominent brand in the future. But I have no immediate plans for such a move, and it may never happen.

What do you think?

[Mops]

FWIW I recently received a similar mail (but from another company, ds-china.org.cn , referring to the .asia, .cn, .co.in, .com.cn, .com.hk, .com.tw, .hk, .in, .net.cn, .org.cn and .tw versions of a .com domain name I use).

I did not reply, because I assume it's the case the OP names in 1. - namely, that they just want to scare me into registering the domains through them.

One major red flag: you won't get such mail from the bona fide domain registries because they do not routinely check for conflict with trade marks/other name rights - their T&C say this is the applicant's responsibility. (except for some specific instances like the sunrise period of .eu - companies with a documented name right or trademark could register before the free-for-all started).

[Mops]

Another thing: No sane business will annoy and alienate a customer who has already placed an order ("Mr. John Sun") for the sake of a possible customer (you), so "Mr. John Sun" obviously does not exist.

[Mangetout]

It's a scam - they want to sell you the domains (which are probably pretty worthless, if you already have a .com or other decent domain)

[Mangetout]

BTW, I like to reply to these emails with "Gosh, thanks for telling me about this - as a safeguard, I've registered those other domains you mentioned via my existing hosting and domain provider"

[Kyrie Eleison]

If you google "John Sun" and domain, you'll find a lot of discussion of messages similar to the one you received. If John Sun exists, he's busy trying to register a lot of different domains, and volcafe.asia is being astonishingly diligent in refusing what must be a small fortune in registration fees to protect your interest in your domain. It's a scam.

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

We've got that message a few of times over the last few years. The last time we got a copy was in November, I still have it in my Trash foldert:During our preliminary investigation,we found that these domain names’ keyword and internet brand is identical with your trademark. I wonder whether you consigned "Andrew Hunter" to register these domain names through us or not? Or is "Andrew Hunter" your business partner or distributor in Asia? Currently, we have postponed this application of this company temporarily already. In order to deal with this issue better, please let the principal make a confirmation with me by telephone or email ASAP.

In addition, I must state that we have time limited for one person or one company’s registration. It is just 15 days. If your company files doesn't resent within the time limited. We will unconditionally authorized the application of "Andrew Hunter".

[Mangetout]

I had one like that once too (I replied thanking them and confirming that Andrew Hunter was one of my trusted colleagues)

[commasense]

Thanks, everyone. In the trash it goes.